Month: February 2016

I’ve started doing the labs for the INE CCIE Workbook. This thing is massive, no wonder people have said they have spend atleast a thousand hours of labs. Today I’ve started with the BGP workbooks and for today alone I’ve managed to finish just 4 labs. To be honest, not really expecting to be working that slow considering I’ve spent my entire Saturday just going through the labs.

I guess I just have to be more patient with myself and the process. Though I am starting to feel guilty knowing that I should be spending this time with my family. I am just thankful, so far they have been understanding but for how long.

It is almost 1am early morning Saturday somewhere in Queensland Australia. My computer just power-cycled for some reason after running an INE lab on my GNS3. I am currently studying on BGP particularly route-reflectors and confederation. Topics that weren’t really touched on heavily during my CCNP R&S study.

I must say there’s really a massive gap between the NP and IE level. What do you expect? It is the expert level, gunning for what most people say as the pinnacle of any network certification. For me I feel like its only the beginning. Yes, it’s definitely not your typical networking stuff but working for an ISP, everything I am currently learning is so useful.

A month since I’ve passed my written exam, I am feeling a little pressure knowing that I only have 17 months left to do my lab attempt and hopefully pass on the first attempt. My approach so far is I am not starting everything based off how the CCIE v5 RS blueprint is set up. I’ve started in the middle with BGP as it is of my interest and moving into MPLS which after going through them I can immediately apply everything at work.

Bryan of INE has been really thorough going through each topic. He’s so not Jeremy Cioara nor Keith Barker of CBTNuggets. He’s straight to the point and will bombard you with all the information you need about the topic.

Since it is inevitable at this point that I need to sit my CCIE RS lab within 18 months, aside from the Cisco book press CCIE books that I already have, I’ve acquired the INE ultimate package. Now being base here in Australia, taking into account the exchange rate I almost fainted when I saw the bill on my credit card. It came to a total of 2,100aud but it came with everything I needed to study for the exam including the lab tokens which I intend to reserve for the troubleshooting section.

It is true, no matter what materials you have regardless if you get all the training materials, unlimited lab tokens, boot camps, it all boils down to you. The time you will be spending devouring all the information and the skills you’ll hon out of this journey.

The moment I got access to the INE portal, I immediately went through the labs. Boy, to be honest, I got confused where things are. Maybe I am just so used to CBT’s format. Instead of setting myself up with an EsXi servier to run CSRv or use virl, I found out that some CCIE passed their lab exams by just using GNS3. Routergods shared GNS3 files of INE labs exercises which is gold!

Now on the downside, I was really banking that work would foot the bill on atleast half of what I have and will spend on the exam. Unfortunately, I am not getting anything which is really sad because I am a firm believer that companies should really support employees for their certs because in the end it will benefit them. oh well.